Tis the season

Ah... the holidays are post and with boxing day comes that lonely meh feeling.  The gift you didn't get haunts, the indigestion you did get lurks and the family member you got into a gun argument with was just... ugh...(another post on that topic later...).  Overall, I have to brag that my holidays were absolutely lovely.  Very stress free, with snow, with movies, with chocolate cake and with lemon basil cookies (my very favorite). 

Today I was with my friend Amy and we were sipping lattes by a fire and talking about 2012 and Canadian geese and our hopes for 2013.  I think most people I know have one of two opinions about 2012; either the year kicked YOUR ass, or you kicked the YEAR's ass.  As I look back at my blog posts for this year and the mix tapes I made each month, I think I kicked 2012 all up and down the place.  It was hard, and had its low-blow moments, but I learned how to lean into the fear and the hard times.  

 Leaning into fear is not a natural inclination for any of us I would venture.  We are fixers and self-medicators.  It is too easy to sweep things under rugs, tune out harsh voices (even our own) and pretend.  But when the hard times really hit this year, I found myself standing in the midst of my own emotional chaos alone.  That is not to say that I am alone... I am so NOT alone.  I am blessed with fabulous friends and family and students and colleagues and neighbors and... well, just lots of people.  But I really found that handling the hardest moments of this year by myself was liberating.  I felt like a real ass-kicker of all those anxieties and fears and other turkeys that would try and get me down. 

There's this great quote in Hamlet: "Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be." I think this means that since none of us can know when our time will come, why worry about what we can't control?  Why allow the fears to get the better of me?  I know a couple things for sure; that I am loved, that I love, and that life will have its good and bad times.  The readiness for life (and all that encompasses) is all. 

Back to those geese... I've had this thing about geese since I was in high school.  I'm not a superstitious person, but when geese fly over, I see it as good luck.  They fly in patterns and they honk and call out to each other, I love it.  The other day, I was out on a walk and a flock of geese flew right over my head.  They were quiet except for the springy hinging of their wings.  It was so cool, and it was so hopeful.  I've also been grading Mary Oliver finals from my seniors, (not a sign of good luck, but a daily occupation) and so this poem seems the perfect capstone for this post.

Wild Geese

 

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~

I hope that your new year celebrations are lovely and that 2013 brings you love and blessings and joy and light.